Limping chicken, please help. *pictures*

[Chicken lover12]

Hello,
I am an experienced poultry keeper experiencing the same problems. I have been doing 4-h for 7 years now and i have also been keeping poultry for 8 years. My hens and rooster limp on one leg and occasionally their wing hangs. There a re a few possibility's.

1.) Scale leg mites. Symptoms: leg scales facing up. Small white bugs on legs. Limping or lame leg. Cure: Smother legs in Vaseline and use poultry and garden dust on nest boxes and on hens. Cause: unsanitary living areas.
2.) Mareks. Symptoms: droopiness, diarrhea, loss of appetite, limping, and sudden death. Cure: sorry to say that there is not one. However this disease spreads like Wilde fire so separate hen immediately at sight of symptoms. Cause: unknown.
3.) Injury. Symptoms: swollen leg, bloody legs, curled toes, and limping. Cure: gentle clean leg with water and peroxide. Wrap wound with a bandage allow to heal by keeping hen in enclosed area away from rest of flock. Cause: many. ie; Getting caught on coop.
4.) Gen tics. This is the one that my flock suffers with. Cause: when diffrent breeds of chickens are breed they get all of their genes mixed up. The chickens that I breed with each other were related to cornish hens (the type of chickens you est that suffer with many health problems because they were not bred to live long). So they can carry bad genes. Cure: Quarantine chickens with the problem and allow to heal. Not a guarantee that they will make a full recovery.
5.) Frostbite. Cause: cold weather conditions. Symptoms: Blueish legs and limping. Prevent it by putting a heat lamp in coop during cold seasons.
6.) Loss of circulation. Cause: string being wrapped around leg. Symptoms: blueish legs and limping. When blood flow is cut off to leg it lose ability to move. Cure: cut of string or whatever is cutting of circulation to leg.
I hope this helps and I will pray for your precious little hen. I will pray for the best! Good luck!

 

[cakmonster]

hi similar problem here too. one minute my warren chicken was fine next second is limping and holding her foot up and closed. we have had a good look and can see no thorn or anything stuck, there is no swelling or cut. a sorry sight hobbling she is free ranging so i don't know why her nails might be too long - she scrats plenty ! hope someone can offer advice thanks in advance

 

[bjlang]

I thought I would post in this forum since my chicken has a similar problem. We noticed yesterday that one of our girls is limping as well. We had a neighbor dog that broke through his fence last week and came up to our coop to harass our chickens. My husband was home with them when it happened and tried to get them all put away (they were free-ranging) but he knows he had at least one in his mouth. (we are very new to chickens and knew something would eventually happen...nothing can prepare you for that phone call!) He checked them all very well and put them to bed for the night. Since then, they have been very hesitant to come outside even in their enclosed run. So they have been spending a lot of time on their roosts. We built a step down for them, but they often jump from their roost to the floor...so I'm wondering if she sprained her leg on a jump. She was fine for 3 days after the dog incident, so I don't know that it would be related to that.

She is limping when she walks, holds her wings out for balance (I assume), lays off to the side rather than straight up and down and is breathing heavy with her mouth open. She is eating and drinking, she has laid an egg both days and she still gets up on the roost (I am going to move a dog crate out to put her in so that she doesn't do that anymore, I was shocked to see her up there!)

Is there anything else I should do for her other than moving her to an enclosed pen and making sure she has food and water? I hate seeing her in pain...of course she's one of our favorites!